


No Such Thing as Cheerleaders

by kristophine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco is Dracaena, F/F, Harry is Harriet, Ron is Ronnie, my bestie pointed out that HP is basically Wizard Mean Girls, takes place when they're adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:27:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5160368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristophine/pseuds/kristophine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harriet Potter got a letter informing her that she was a witch, and that she was going to Hogwarts, she was eleven and everything changed. </p><p>On the train, she ran into Dracaena Malfoy, who (as it turned out) was just awful. Snobby, with her blonde hair pulled back in a pert little ponytail and her bangs perfectly curled. Harriet hated her instantly. The feeling, it rapidly became clear, was mutual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as Cheerleaders

**Author's Note:**

> This is for owls-fandoms-stuff, who requested lesbian Harry/Draco. I'm about as American as you can realistically get, so this is probably not suitable for British people (feel free to volunteer to Brit-pick my next fic). ecce-meliora read it over for me and made it 20% less glum and the sex considerably more anatomically probable.

When Harriet Potter got a letter informing her that she was a witch, and that she was going to Hogwarts, she was eleven and everything changed.

On the train, she ran into Dracaena Malfoy, who (as it turned out) was just awful. Snobby, with her blonde hair pulled back in a pert little ponytail and her bangs perfectly curled. Harriet hated her instantly. The feeling, it rapidly became clear, was mutual.

Dracaena stared at her with undisguised disdain and said, “Really? You’re wearing _that?_ In _fall?_ That’s so... _brave,_ ” with insincerely wide eyes and slightly raised eyebrows and Harriet had to grit her teeth.

 

When Harriet is a 30-year-old Auror, benched with an injured femur for at least a year, she gets a job offer at Hogwarts. “Just for a year, my dear,” says Minerva, silkily. “Not a long-term commitment. Although of course we’d be lucky to have you.”

 

On the train back to Hogwarts, she’s flipping through the latest Wizarding news (they still haven’t figured out that the Internet is vastly superior to printing, chalk it up to anti-Muggle sentiment, however much that’s supposed to have died out), when she hears a pointed cough. She looks up.

“ _You_ ,” she says, feelingly.

Dracaena’s face doesn’t change. “Is this seat taken?” She gestures at the seat across from Harriet.

“God, fine, take it.” Harriet drags her crutch out of the way, rattling it as noisily as possible in an attempt to be loudly and aggressively pathetic and perhaps induce some guilt over the inconvenience.

Dracaena settles down, draping her wool trench coat over the back of the seat, crossing her legs despite her tailored skirt and jacket. Of course her luggage is vintage wizarding leather, it’s probably actual dragonhide or something ludicrously expensive and endangered like that. Harriet’s never forgotten what Dracaena did for them, at the end, but she also hasn’t forgotten the cracks about her limp fine hair or her unibrow or God was there anything Dracaena _didn’t_ give her crap about? Or Hermione, _mudblood,_ that still stings, worse than the sniffs at her clothes and buck teeth, that’s still something worth being really angry about.

Dracaena pulls a bottle out of her purse and taps a couple of pills into her hand, and takes them with a swallow of water from a disposable plastic bottle.

Harriet remembers she’s supposed to be reading the paper, and frowns down at it ferociously. The Harpies are doing well—she follows them, even after everything—and after a couple of minutes of pretending to focus on the article, and silence from across the way, she manages to actually get back into reading.

When Dracaena shifts and coughs a little while later, it comes as a terrible shock, and Harriet’s head jerks up. But Dracaena’s looking out the window, not at Harriet, and after a few minutes she seems to settle back and drift off.

When they get to Hogwarts, Harriet’s worst fears are confirmed: Dracaena settles her lips in a thin line and picks up her luggage and heads resolutely for the Great Hall.

 

Minerva, in the flurry of getting the students all settled, looks up and smiles in Harriet’s general direction, but doesn’t even bother waving to the teacher’s table. Harriet sighs and finds herself a place. Professor Sprout smiles at her and asks a few questions about how the Ministry is doing these days, and Harriet stumbles through answers about the recent uptick in magical creature breeding and how important it’s been to set firm boundaries.

Dracaena is sitting a few seats down. This is going to be excruciating. There’s—okay, Snape isn’t there. Did Snape finally die of something? (Perhaps his chronic case of Tragically Unloved Asshole-itis.)

Neville, bless his heart, is perched awkwardly next to Minerva’s seat, probably pissing off all kinds of people who think _they_ ought to get that chair. Wonderful. She gives him a little smile and a tiny wave, and he waves back, face lighting up.

When Minerva makes the introductions, Harriet’s already pounded two glasses of Merlot, and she just barely manages to smile graciously as she’s introduced as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. When Minerva gets down to Dracaena, yes, she’s Potions this year—apparently Snape is on _sabbatical,_ great, so he’ll return to terrorize more innocent children, probably for dozens of years to come. Maybe hundreds. Maybe spite prolongs your lifespan.

 

The quarters for the DADA teacher are depressingly familiar. Harriet tries very hard not to think about it while she unloads her trunk of what things she didn’t stuff into a storage unit.

Her broom, she hefts for a minute. Youngest Seeker in House history; now she’s got a long bone in her thigh that, thanks to that damn swamp-goblin’s venom, won’t finish regrowing for _months._ It’s going to make flying impossible, and she’s aging out of her prime. She’s already started losing her sense of balance. She was a good Seeker but she never went pro, she went Auror instead, and now she can feel her body starting to fail her.

Her leg’s bothering her, so she sighs and sits down, getting her weight off the crutch, and props it up in front of the fire. What was Dracaena taking on the bus? Looked like Muggle medicine, little amber plastic bottle and all. Maybe she’s branching out.

Minerva drops by unannounced and finds Harriet there, and makes her a cup of tea without asking.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she says, her voice still cultured and a little pitchy. “We were in quite a bind, losing two professors at once this year. And it’s been difficult to fill the DADA position, ever since the War.”

(Difficult to fill with someone trustworthy, she means.) Harriet just nods, inhaling the steam off the tea. Lapsang souchong. Perfect.

“I hate to say it, but your accident was a touch fortuitous for us. And young Ms. Malfoy’s finally finishing her Muggle degree, of course.”

Harriet looks up sharply. “What? _Dracaena_ went to a Muggle school?”

“University! In the States, actually. She has, let me see, a bachelor’s in organic chemistry. She says it’s quite useful for Potions. I do believe if she hadn’t come back to teach for us she was thinking about getting a doctorate.”

“Hm,” says Harriet.

“She did take five years, where I understand that the traditional route for the Muggle unis in the States is four. But she got a bit sidetracked and took a semester off to study with a group of American witches who are integrating Herbology with the study of electricity. She patented a plant that does something interesting.”

Of course she would. “How nice.”

“She’s grown up quite a bit since you were children, you know. You might give her a chance. There aren’t many teachers here close to your own age.”

Which is more of a miracle, isn’t it, that so many of the older generation survived the War. But it’s true; it’s Harriet and Dracaena and Neville and just a couple of other people, no one they were ever close to, a couple of teachers from Beauxbatons.

“Hmm,” says Harriet, and sips her tea.

 

When Minerva leaves, the room feels dreadfully drafty. Harriet hauls her aching leg over to bed, which is a little musty but at least the sheets are clean, and settles in.

 

Developing a curriculum is harder than when she was a teenager starting Dumbledore’s Army. If Hermione was around, she would know what to do. (Ronnie would be absolutely useless, she’s brave as hell and wicked good at strategy but she hates sitting down and plodding through books.) Neville helps. She waylays him right off the bat, and he says, “So what do you have prepared already?”

She waves her hands vaguely, and he catches on. “Right. So, you’ll want to have an idea of what they should learn, first. Figure out what they need to know. When you’ve got that, and if you can get any idea of what they learned last year, make up assignments for them, then.”

For her first class she sticks to the basics. She introduces herself and asks the students to introduce themselves. Most of them make it through saying their name and something interesting about themselves without blushing or stuttering too badly. There are some familiar names, of course, which gives her a bit of a bad turn here and there—people who were second or third years when she first started school are old enough now that their children are squinting grimly or beaming at her in the class of first-years. Mostly, she heard their names from the Sorting Hat. But a few still catch her by surprise.

Dean’s little girl (probably adopted, from the looks of her), Clementine, has his habit of quizzically spreading her hands. It takes her breath away for a second. She feels absurdly young, can remember with the vivid clarity of a bomb going off how the smoke from Dean and Seamus’ project smelled behind her in first year, and it hurts.

 

She sends Ronnie a quick note— _settled in, doing nicely_ —and forgets all about it before the third morning, when an owl flutters in at breakfast (which she’s taking early because it takes time to get things set up ahead of the students, who are cruel, vicious little beasts that she quite likes). Her response is nothing but an epic description of how tits-up everything at the Ministry is going without her. It’s satisfying. She would like to think she’s above such petty concerns, but she very clearly is not.

Her classes go, on the whole, pretty smoothly. The seventh-years clearly had pretty weak classes the year before, so they get a lot of drills on protective magic and writing assignments about theory. They complain, but she assures them they’ll get over it. Fourth and fifth years are worse, because they actually got a decent grounding in principles from someone, back down the line, but had very little chance to practice, so they’re all itching for it. And not _every_ professor is being careful to make sure they learn how to do things right before they start casting spells.

Periodically one of them will make the mistake of starting something with “But Professor Malfoy said—” and she’ll grit her teeth through the smiling answer of “And in Professor Malfoy’s class, you can do it that way.”

 _Professor_ Malfoy apparently has been encouraging them to do lots of cross-cultural outreach, including reading Muggle works about pharmacology, including a pamphlet she’s clearly photocopied illegally somewhere. “It’s for educational use,” Dracaena sniffs when Harriet makes a comment about it at the breakfast table, where Dracaena’s been showing up earlier and earlier. “Copyright law permits.”

“Well, then of _course_ it’s fine,” says Harriet, rolling her eyes.

Dracaena is quiet for a minute. Harriet stabs another serving out of the hash browns.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” says Dracaena, “about—well, you know. You and Ginny.”

Harriet drops the serving fork with a clatter. She gets up. She walks away from the breakfast table.

 

When one’s ex is a famous Quidditch player—well, as famous as the girl’s teams get—there are all kinds of reminders. She has not been expecting a Malfoy to be one of them.

 

The next time they pass in the hall, Dracaena whispers, her lips barely moving, “It wasn’t _my_ idea to date a _younger woman,_ Potter, don’t get in a snit.”

Harriet is, as always, at a loss for words. And too old now to body-check anyone into a wall or mumble a hex. (Hermione was always a little scandalized by the body-checks, but Harriet knew better; a sharp elbow to the sternum kept a lot of unkind words unsaid.) And since when is less than two years younger a _younger woman,_ anyway?

 

Harriet Apparates over to Ronnie’s place for dinner. Ronnie and Hermione are already there, starting on the martinis. (“Bloody brilliant,” said Ronnie, the first time they introduced her to the idea; her soft, pink cheeks split into a huge grin.)

Hermione keeps up a stream of constant chatter about the Ministry of Magical Integration, and then produces mobiles that have been spelled to automatically reject drunk texts. Harriet makes grabby hands at one, only to get a sharp rap across the knuckles. “They’re not _ready,_ Harry,” she says, “right now they won’t let you drunk-text but you can still drunk-dial.”

Harriet subsides, glaring balefully at the betrayal machines.

“Mom wants to know if you want to come by for Christmas,” says Ronnie, with her mouth full. “You know the drill.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” (It has sounded good every year, but Mrs. Weasley worries that one of these year Harriet’s going to suddenly grow a life and have better things to do. Not this particular year. Maybe next, depending on who the Harpies are playing and when, and whether that involves Ginny being at the Burrow or on the road.)

“Excellent. Oh, hey, are you going to eat that?”

“Mm? No, take it.”

The last of the linguini vanishes off Harriet’s plate.

“How did that date go?” Ronnie asks Hermione, who sighs and drops her chin.

“Not well, I’m afraid. All he wanted to talk about was whether I thought his father’s friends would get him a good enough posting in the Diplomatic Corps if he ‘slummed it’ with Muggles.”

“Ouch,” says Harriet, then knocks back the rest of her martini.

“He also smelled like mildew. I have got to develop—hmm. A dating website that includes relevant information, like... hmmm.” Hermione pulls a notepad out of her cardigan pocket and starts scribbling.

“Apparently Malfoy patented something in the US,” says Harriet.

“Oh, yeah?” Ronnie raises her eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Some kind of plant. I guess she got into Herbology and—chemistry, I think, whatever, over there.”

“Are you two talking these days?” asks Hermione.

“Not much. She was being _weird_ about Ginny. Said she was _sorry_ about it.”

“You could take that as actual sympathy,” says Hermione, cautiously.

Harriet makes a face at her. “Right! Right, why wouldn’t _Weaselpoofs_ Malfoy be _sincere_ about a thing like that?”

Hermione sighs. “She was a lot younger when she did that. She apologized to Fred for it later, you know.”

“She thought it was good enough to be singing, though, didn’t she?”

Hermione says, “All I’m saying is that she might have been trying to say she was sorry.”

“Yeah, well, she can keep it. Why would she even bring that up, if it wasn’t another dig?”

“Maybe she fancies you,” Ronnie contributes, dragging another helping of the yogurt-and-fresh-fruit-with-honey-drizzle “dessert” Hermione had made onto her plate.

Harriet cracks up laughing, shakes her head, and says, “Oh, Ronnie. How about _your_ love life?”

“It’s good! We’re going away for a nice weekend soon. Barbados.”

“I’m so jealous,” says Harriet, and Hermione hums in agreement, scribbling something else in her little notebook.

“You ought to be. Barbados!” Ronnie sighs luxuriously and stretches, her big knit jumper riding up. “I’m going to come back sore, sunburned, and happy.”

“And with sand in odd places,” adds Harriet.

“To sand in odd places!” Ronnie heaves her martini glass up, and Harriet hurries to tap her empty one to it before getting up for another.

When she finally Apparates home that night, she falls asleep with her clothes still on, but it’s worth it.

 

Breaking up with Ginny had also come with a truly unfortunate amount of news coverage.

Well, more _being broken up with,_ Harriet supposes, although a shouting match in public is never a good sign that either party was terribly happy. Ginny’s face had been beet-red as she screamed “Harriet _bloody_ Potter, the Child Who Lived, can’t get her _act_ together long enough to just _be a half-decent girlfriend for once,_ ” and Harriet had felt... oh, not good, not good at all.

So she’d screamed back, “And you’re so good at this! How many girls have there been when you’re _away?_ How many girls are there still going to _be?_ Are you going to lie to me some more and tell me you never shag those bints I see making eyes at you from the sidelines?”

And every moment of it, Ginny’s fearfully angry retort and Harriet’s continued pressing of the issue of on-the-road fidelity, had shown up in the papers the next day, because they were stupid enough to fight in a pub.

But Harriet is pretty sure she was right, still. Every time Ginny hid the laundry, or “lost” clothes on the road, or she’d find a receipt in a pocket for dinner for two—Ginny was famous, and in the early years Harriet hadn’t been so suspicious and hadn’t minded so much, but over time it had added up. And Ginny had gotten more and more sullen and distant, and Harriet had gotten more and more possessive and suspicious, and finally, well, everything had to give eventually, didn’t it? On-and-off, that was nearly thirteen years down the toilet, right there. And Ginny didn’t even seem to particularly miss her, which was cruel.

Thank goodness for work. Being an Auror was perfect. She could come in early, stay late, spend her time at the office until eventually she just gave up and put in a little pocket room under her desk where she could crawl into a cot when she didn’t want to go home to sleep.

It had very nearly been a divorce, would have done if they’d been married, and when Ginny had packed up all her things and left, Harriet had very nearly gotten a new place.

 

It’s a few days until the winter holidays when Harriet overhears Minerva asking Malfoy whether she’s going to stay over.

“Yes, I think I will,” says Dracaena. “I’ve got a few students with no homes to go back to, and... it seems like a good idea.”

That is uncomfortable. Sympathy is definitely uncomfortable. It makes her feel almost as though she ought to do something about it. Certainly not invite Dracaena for the holidays, it’s the Weasleys’ anyway, but something.

That evening she puts some effort into making a present, of all the awful things, and charms it to appear in Dracaena’s room on Christmas morning. She leaves it anonymous, for obvious reasons.

 

Ronnie’s house is acceptable because Ginny is not there, for the holidays, this year. She’s got an exhibition game overseas and won’t be back until two days after Christmas, which gives Harriet plenty of time to celebrate and then get the hell out.

Molly is starting to slow down a little bit, and she actually lets Harriet do some of the work, which is a bit of a change, even if she only relegates tasks that involve sitting down.

Harriet gets a sweater and promises to love it all the days of her life.

 

When Harriet gets back, she finds on her mantelpiece an elegantly-lettered cream-colored envelope, addressed to her in pure calligraphy. The paper is so stiff and heavy it’s a wonder they could fold it. She opens it to find a card that simply says, “Thanks,” scrawled in... definitely not the same handwriting as the envelope.

She doesn’t know quite what to make of that, but she leaves the card on a side table and it quickly gets buried under stray books and papers. So much for an anonymous present.

 

When she sees Dracaena again, they’re both watching the Quidditch teams, and Dracaena is wearing the present—a wide cuff bracelet that is designed to perfectly cover the faded, silvery scar that she got from her parents’ master at fourteen. It’s also charmed so it won’t slide down her arm or make noises when it knocks into anything. It’s perfectly in style this season. She may have gotten a fashion magazine and checked.

 

The New Year’s Eve party Neville decides to host in his rooms consists of Neville, the teachers from Beauxbatons (Adelaide and Olivie, Charms and Divination, respectively), Harriet, and Dracaena, and in content it consists exclusively of getting as drunk as humanly possible.

“Are you trying to take advantage of lowered inhibitions, Neville?” Harriet asks him at one point, _sotto voce_ , trying to keep him in focus despite the room’s general leftward list.

He shakes his head, shifting on the couch so he can get a little further from her pointy knee, which she’s currently using to claim the middle cushion. “Somehow I don’t think my odds are all that good.”

“Four women to one man?”

“You’re one of the women, Cany’s another, and the other two are French.”

“ _Cany_?”

“Well, I’m not calling her Drake.”

“At any rate, you’re the hero of the Battle of Hogwarts. Those Frenchies might be into that.”

He glances over at them. “Well. If they say anything to you, be sure to tell them I’m—”

“—not only handsome and clever, but a stud as well. I have your back, Nev.”

Dracaena is flushed, laughing loudly at something Adelaide said, and Olivie has her hands over her face. White-blonde hair is spilling over her shoulders, coming out of the tidy low ponytail.

 

It doesn’t really occur to her until two days later, when she’s visiting Neville for a quick bite of lunch in the greenhouse while he helps her finish a lesson plan.

“Hey,” she says, “did you mean you wouldn’t date Dracaena even if she wanted to?”

Neville shoots her a sidelong look. “She d—she was pretty _involved_ with the people who—destroyed my family.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“What else would I have meant?”

She shrugs. “Well, I know why _I’m_ unlikely to succumb to your charms, charming though they may be.”

“And you were wondering if she’s a no-go for the same reasons?”

“Or other r—not necessarily the same.” Harriet feels like she has to get a little bit defensive, on that one.

He just raises his eyebrows and wiggles them at her. She rolls her eyes and swats at his knee, and he helps her figure out a nice low-level curse to make the sixth years write an essay on.

 

Harriet sneaks out one night (well, as much as one can sneak with a profound limp) for drinks at the Leaky Cauldron. She’s sitting alone, sipping at her mug of beer, when Dracaena sits down across from her, holding a mug of her own.

“Mind if I join you?” asks Dracaena.

Harriet considers objecting, but decides against it. She just shrugs.

Dracaena stares at her mug, forehead creased in something that looks like worry, maybe. Concern. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked out of turn about Ginny. I just wanted to—I suppose to say I was sorry about _something._ ”

Harriet blinks. “Well. Thank you, I suppose. I—I didn’t take it very well, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you. It looked like quite a bad time. I should have known it would be painful.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

Dracaena takes a long drink off her beer. “To break-ups. May all our exes rot.”

“May they rot,” agrees Harriet, and they actually clink mugs. “Cheers.”

 

The rest of the evening passes peacefully enough. Dracaena ventures some opinions mixed with gossip about other professors, and Harriet laughs, too loudly, after a few beers.

“—and Neville, of course, there’s talk about him, but I don’t believe a word of it,” says Dracaena.

“What kind of talk? He’s such a dear.”

“He is a dear! I heard you were an item.”

“Oh, good Lord! The two of us?” Harriet shakes her head vigorously. “What a thought!”

Dracaena is looking at her with a little smile hovering around the edges of her lips. “ _I_ thought you might be, for a while.”

“No, no, he’s a sweet man but he’s a bit too much of one, you know?”

“I suppose for you,” says Dracaena. “Never stopped me.”

Harriet shrugs. “Well, we can’t all be me.”

Dracaena laughs. “All this time and you’re still just as Potter as always,” she says, and it’s the kind of thing she used to say to hurt, but now it sounds fond. There’s no sting in it.

They make it back to Hogwarts late, but it’s a weekend, after all, so there’s really no need to hurry, and if Harriet has to lean on Dracaena when they Apparate back, that’s just proof her leg still needs time to mend.

 

Neville suggests happy hour with the three of them, so at The Three Broomsticks, when he’s in the bathroom, Harriet finally asks Dracaena about the Muggle pill bottle.

Dracaena looks down at the table top, fiddles with her napkin. “Well,” she says, “Muggle doctors—they’re really onto something, you know. After the War I couldn’t sleep through the night for, oh, years. They diagnosed me with—it’s like shell-shock, I suppose. And they gave me a prescription for it.”

“Does it _work?_ ” asks Harriet, intrigued.

Dracaena nods. “Like a charm,” she says, and snorts a little unladylike laugh. “I can sleep like a baby most nights. I can think about other things. I don’t feel so—I don’t feel like a failure all of the time.”

What an odd thought. Dracaena feeling like a failure. She’s sitting there in the booth, hair coming loose from her bun, wisps escaping around her face. Her grey eyes are warmer than they’ve ever been. She looks like a fashion plate, put together, even after a few drinks and with a picked-over appetizer plate in front of her. The old-fashioned black robe just looks like a new line from Prada on her, and Harriet doesn’t know how she can stand walking in high heels, but she knows the red soles and she knows Dracaena is good with charms.

“That sounds nice,” Harriet says, eventually. “It took me a long time to get back to sleeping, too.”

 

For Valentine’s Day, Neville sends absolutely everyone the most ridiculous, exploding charms. They burst into tiny pink-and-red fireworks displays with curlicues and hearts and flowers, and they spell out things like “You’re swell” and “Stay charming,” and Harriet secretly loves hers, which just says “Posh!”

Dracaena’s is a huge mess of flowers that puff away and leave behind a sparkling gold “Best Friends!!!” It makes Dracaena laugh, chest heaving in a thin silk blouse, pencil skirt.

Harriet’s eyes slide sideways; she isn’t really checking Olivie’s, but—it goes up in a puff of smoke to spell, “Lovely,” and Olivie’s cheeks are a little pinker than usual.

Harriet smiles down into her breakfast. Good for Neville.

 

Later that day Dracaena catches her and says, “Do you want to have a good drunk tonight? It’s not my best night.”

Harriet says, “Why not,” which is how she ends up showing up to Dracaena’s rooms with a bottle of whiskey in hand. Dracaena lets her in and digs up two tumblers, wiping the dust off them before presenting one to Harriet with a dramatic flourish. Harriet settles down on the sofa, crutch leaning against the arm, and pours Dracaena’s glass before her own. There’s a Muggle radio on, and the latest pop hit is murmuring softly about candy.

“How’s Ronnie?” asks Dracaena.

“Oh, she’s good. She’s off to Barbados for a vacation, can’t believe her luck.”

Dracaena shrugs. “I always thought she’d find somebody who appreciated her.”

Harriet raises her eyebrows. “Well, of course. She’s a lovely and charming girl.”

“I thought it might be you, actually. You two were always so close.”

“Not that close,” Harriet says, “Ronnie was always straight. Remember Victor Krum?”

“Do I! I thought Ronnie was going to have an aneurysm when she saw he liked Hermione!”

“She got over it, though! But it wasn’t pretty.”

“Well, hos before bros, as they say.”

Harriet bursts out laughing. “Who says that? Is that something from your American frat sisters?”

“Sorority sisters!” That gets her started, and Dracaena tells a rambling story about a sorority girl at her American uni, something about a hazing ritual with a paddle. When she finishes it, they’re both laughing so hard they’re nearly in tears over it.

“I can’t believe—” wheezes Harriet. “You actually—”

“And to a _cop!_ I’m never going to be allowed in Mississippi again—”

“Not much of a loss!”

Dracaena takes another sip of her drink and then she says, “Sororities aren’t that much worse than Houses, really.”

“How are the Slytherins this year?”

Dracaena rolls her eyes. “Convinced of their own importance. It takes work to break them of that, but they’re going to be insufferable if somebody doesn’t.”

“The Gryffindors keep trying to do things that are just barking mad,” Harriet confides. “I caught one of them trying to jump off the Astronomy Tower on a dare.”

“Oh, good heavens.”

“I don’t remember being like that as a child.”

“I’m sure we were.” Dracaena smiles into the distance. “You know we—did you girls ever play kissing games? We had one with an orange and cloves, and somehow I always got stuck with Pansy. Oh, she was just abominable at it.”

“I can’t imagine. I _won’t_ imagine.”

“But did you?”

“I suppose we did, but it wasn’t much of a thing after third year or so.”

“Yeah.” Dracaena is still smiling a little, turning her glass around and around. “You know I was mad about you.”

“I had no idea,” says Harriet, quite honestly.

Dracaena laughs, startled. “Really? I _made up songs_ about you, Potter, my mother had to tell me to stop talking about you so much.”

Harriet shakes her head, slowly. “No idea at all,” she says, blinking in wonder, and she meets Dracaena’s eyes, and there’s a long, tense moment when anything at all could happen before Dracaena leans in, haltingly.

Dracaena is warm and _beautiful_ and soft, her breasts pressing into Harriet’s, and she doesn’t appear to be hesitant at all about kissing, given how she’s chasing Harriet’s sighs, pushing Harriet back into the sofa and sliding her hands under Harriet’s shirt. Her hands neatly snap the bra clasp apart, and she tugs the shirt up to mouth at Harriet’s breasts.

Harriet gasps out a sigh, and Dracaena moans, low in her throat. There’s been nobody since—there’s been nobody _but_ —and this is—oh, this is nice. Dracaena’s caressing her sides, palms, then fingers gripping her, by turns. Dracaena is just going over her with her mouth and her hands like she wants to touch everything, every inch of her, licking with the soft darting tip of her tongue, dragging her lower lip over bare skin.

Harriet runs her fingers through Dracaena’s hair, and that gets another moan. Dracaena is lying half-on and half-against her, and she’s slowly, rhythmically clenching her hips around Harriet’s thigh, hitching up against her. She runs her hand over Harriet’s breast and cups it into her mouth, tonguing Harriet’s nipple. Harriet arches up into it—a bolt of pleasure right to her sex—and Dracaena makes a pleading noise.

She lifts her head and says, sounding desperate, drugged, “Can I—I want to—?”

“What—?” says Harriet.

Dracaena slides her hand down, over the swell of Harriet’s belly to the buttons of her trousers, grinds the heel of her hand down hard. “ _Please,_ ” she says, “let me,” and Harriet gets the memo.

“Oh,” says Harriet, “god, yes, please, yes.”

Dracaena gets Harriet’s trousers undone in a hurry, tugs them down over her hips, and then can’t wait to get them the rest of the way off before she drops her head to harshly mouth over Harriet’s panties. The hot, wet breath makes the thin fabric cling, and through it she can feel Dracaena’s tongue, flicking briefly over her clit. She grabs Dracaena’s shoulders, thumbs digging in, and Dracaena moans again, presses her hand against her own skirt, pushing hard, digging her thumb in so Harriet can see the outline of her against the fabric.

“ _Hell,_ ” says Dracaena, and it sounds like she’s starving for this. She rears back and grabs Harriet’s trousers, and drags them off her in one forceful move. Harriet gets one leg up over the back of the sofa and Dracaena slides her hands up under Harriet’s thighs, tilts her up, and presses her nose up against Harriet’s curling thatch of hair, inhaling deeply. Harriet’s hands scrabble over Dracaena’s skin, and she tries not to pull hair as Dracaena starts tonguing her, running her tongue down over and over again. Dracaena licks her middle finger and rests it against Harriet’s labia for a minute before starting—agonizingly slowly—to slide it into her.

Harriet’s hips buck up, and Dracaena grips with her free hand and pins her down. Harriet’s breath is catching in her throat, and she manages to get out, “More, more,” and Dracaena gasps and slides another finger in, and then another, and with the knuckle of her pinky finger rocks up against her from behind, and with that steady, rocking pressure on her and in her and Dracaena’s tongue on her clit the pleasure builds and builds—she tries to make it last as long as she can, but it’s not going to be long—oh, but it feels so good—and she jackknifes up, screaming, coming harder than she can ever remember, clenching around Dracaena’s fingers over and over again, Dracaena’s mouth cupped completely over her.

She subsides, eventually, still gasping for air, her cunt rippling around Dracaena’s fingers. Dracaena has her cheek laid on Harriet’s thigh and her face is bright red, her lips shining and wet. She’s staring at her fingers where they vanish into Harriet and she looks wrecked.

“You’re so beautiful,” says Harriet, and Dracaena glances up, shocked; her eyes shut for a split second, squeezed shut, like the words hurt her.

After another moment Dracaena lets her fingers slowly slide out, and she rests her hand on Harriet’s other thigh. She looks like she could stay there all night, sleep there.

“Do you—” Harriet starts, and has to stop and swallow before she can start again and say, “do you want me to touch you?”

Dracaena shivers. “Only if y—you want to.”

“Oh, hell, yes,” says Harriet fervently. She kneels up on her aching leg and slides her hands down to Dracaena’s lower back, holding them pressed together, then rucks up her skirt. Dracaena wraps her legs around Harriet. Dracaena’s—oh, God, she’s not wearing any panties at all. Harriet starts in on Dracaena’s blouse’s buttons, whispering as she goes, _you’re so beautiful, look at you, I want to look at you, I want to touch you,_ which leaves Dracaena whimpering and rutting against Harriet’s still-tender clit. Harriet, persevering in the face of adversity, manages to get the blouse and the bra off, which leaves just the pencil skirt rucked up around Dracaena’s waist, and Dracaena looks like she’s on the verge of tears, flushed and blotchy and begging, _touch me, touch me._

“What do you like?” asks Harriet, and Dracaena howls a little, grabbing her ass and dragging her closer. So Harriet braces her knees and starts to rub her thumb over Dracaena’s clit. Dracaena bucks, looking shocked, and then she moans at the sensation and shoves herself down onto Harriet’s hand.

Harriet bites back her words, and slides her other fingers in. Dracaena makes little noises like she’s sobbing, whining, until it turns into words, incoherent but still filthy-pretty, her lips pursed until she throws her head back and shrieks into an orgasm.

Harriet’s knees go out on her, leg aching. Dracaena surprises her by reaching out for her and pulling her in, wrapping her arms around her. She goes—and it’s good, here, her head pillowed against Dracaena’s naked breasts, listening to her racing heart and stuttering breaths. Dracaena kisses her hair and she kisses whatever parts of Dracaena she can reach, which turns out to be lots of good ones, Dracaena’s hand running through her hair over and over again, nails gliding over the shell of her ear.

“I,” says Dracaena eventually, when her breathing has slowed down. She abandons that and says, “do you want to stay over?”

Harriet opens her mouth, and Dracaena says, in a rush, “I’m—that’s an invitation, please stay over.”

Harriet smiles. “Yes,” she says, “I’d really like to.” She kisses Dracaena’s chest, just below her collarbone.

(It doesn’t occur to her until the next day that it was Valentine’s. And she didn’t even get Dracaena anything.)

 

The students notice, over the next few weeks, that Professor Potter seems much more cheerful these days. (Witch Weekly doesn’t, for now.)

Neville raises his eyebrows at her the first time he drops by early in the morning and Dracaena is sitting on the sofa in sweatpants and a ratty old t-shirt of Harriet’s, drinking a mug of tea. But he smiles, too, and there’s nothing mean or spiteful in his look.

When they’ve been seeing each other long enough for it to be the students’ spring break, Harriet says, “Let’s go on a proper date,” and Dracaena looks stunned, a little scared, but pleased, too. And the restaurant where they go is Muggle, but they go there together and Harriet puts her arm around Dracaena’s waist as they walk in, and Dracaena, bold after two glasses of wine, reaches across the table and puts her hand on Harriet’s. And if anyone had ever told Harriet that this is where they would be, she would have laughed, she thinks. (But—somewhere—she thinks, too, she would have been glad.)


End file.
